The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1912. THE SCHOOLING OF WOMEN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 185, 3 February 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1912. THE SCHOOLING OF WOMEN.

Anyone who takes any interest in educational news will have noticed when reading lists of educational "passes," university and otherwise, the increasing proportion of girls who strive for and ob■tain scholastic success. It is very notable that in the assimilation of the written knowledge of other people women often outpace men. They bring an application to the task of memorising that makes it easy for them to attain degrees. Schooling and the passing of examinations are only of service where the knowledge absorbed in the process is applied to everyday duties. The "swatting" of any subject and the passing in it do not necessarily indicate talent or even superior brains. It is easy to find persons who are quite unschooled and yet intelligent and outstanding, and to discover those who are schooled from A to Z, and are neither intelligent nor useful. Obviously in many cases women

apply themselves to the business of passing examinations ;lajd obtaining scholastic distinctions merely from an instinct to excel above their fellows, but so small a proportion! of women who undertake "swat" do any tiling with the results, that one must regard what is quite wrongly called "the higher education of women" as a distinct 'handicap to them. If all the women who achieve examination passes in New Zealand apply themselves to the education of young people for the whole of their lives, well and good. If nearly all the women who apply themselves, to the study of special subjects and make those subjects their life's work, also well and good. The real facts are, however, that educational attainment by a very large number of women is merely by way of showing • that they have "brains" equal to those of the man, student. Neither the examination results of the man student nor the examination results of the women student indicate in any useful degree the brain quality of the examinees. The fact that a woman has become an M.A. or B.A. will help her if she is going to tackle the education of children, but if she contemplates being absorbed into the married population it seems that the time she has spent ] in memorising facts, ascertained by other | people, is so much waste time. Observers —and especially medical observers—know that the application by young women to study for a period of years during the time that they should be enjoying life and gathering physical strength and health is wholly bad, and sows trouble in more ways than one. The fight against the "higher education" of women may have seemed brutal in the old days, but it was founded on true instinct, hi real chivalry, and in the belief that £ woman is to be protected. The gaining of a university degree by a w.oman is a suggestion to the ordinary person that she will remain a spinster, for if she does not, her application and her "swat", is mostly wasted. Parents are much to blame for pushing girls forward in the educational race, the idea seeming to be that the gathering in of a degree is of much more consequence than allowing ' girls to follow their natural trend. There is no other reason to condemn this national desire to make M.A.'s and B.A.'s of girls except that it is unnatural. Anything unnatural is wrong. Educationists I are very often quite unpractical persons, their assumption being that the community is better educated than it'used to be I because more women are tackling educational subjects and are ruining their young lives by unnatural application during the most critical period of their lives. The over-schooling of girls is a serious national problem, and the growth of this race for empty certificates will affect the: national life. If educationists are wise they will be less keen on trotting out mentally bright girls and making them dance through examinations as a compliment to the educational system. It is not to be doubted that many bright girls are made very dull and useless by the . hothouse type of '-'education" which has ■ as little to do with true knowledge and individually as kun Yat Sen has to do with Number Five bore.